Insanity Wrap needs to know: If the New York Times reports good news about Florida’s re-opening, is the news still good?
Answer: Yes!
Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.
- Oregon Democrats introduce insane reparations bill
- Andrew Cuomo translated for the deaf and sophomoric
- Dictionary.com didn’t change its name to Newspeak.com, but maybe it won’t be long
And so much more.
Shall we begin?
This Is Not a Sane World, Exhibit #1,000,006
Oregon Democrats introduce legislation that would pay black residents $123k in slavery reparations
Oregon, where a very vocal (not to mention partly violent) segment of the population doesn’t even want to be a part of the United States, could become the first state government to pay reparations to the descendants of slaves.
Insanity Wrap marvels at the sheer daring of their hubris.
This country very quickly went from Barack Obama refusing to endorse reparations to reparations becoming nearly inevitable under the “moderate” administration of Presidentish Joe Biden.
And it’s starting in… Oregon?
Of course it’s Oregon:
According to the bill, the money will be paid to anyone who can demonstrate that they are a descendant of slaves and are identified as African-American on legal documentation.
The bill states that the state Department of Revenue is to establish a reparations payment program for African-Americans “who can demonstrate heritage in slavery” and provide legal documentation that identifies them as “African-American” for at least 10 years. Those eligible for the reparations must reside in the state for a minimum of two years.
The payment would be annual and recipients would be set to receive $123,000 paid out over the course of their life, plus interest.
Incentives, how do they work?
Allow Insanity Wrap to indulge in the numbers that Oregon Democrats cannot or will not.
Nobody knows how much Oregon’s reparations might cost state taxpayers, although local Republicans “estimate that the state could spend as much as $11.8 trillion.” Oregon’s state GDP stood at about $250 billion in 2019, meaning that over the course of the program, reparations could cost as much as 48 times the value of every single good and service produced there each year.
Insanity Wrap looked it up, and Oregon’s per capita personal income was $53,191 before the COVID shutdowns and nightly riots, and today is presumably less. So what lawmakers are proposing is about 2.5 years’ worth of free income (plus interest!) just for Oregoning while black.
The tax burden would be unbearable.
Insanity Wrap will put this very simply so that even a Democrat might understand it: If reparations pass, there will be no reason for non-black people to stay in Oregon and every incentive for black people to flood the state.
We’re forced to assume that the reparations bill is just cheap virtue signaling and not the Democrats’ actual plan to permanently bankrupt the state.
But Insanity Wrap also would also not be in the least bit surprised if the economic illiterates (we get tired sometimes of typing “Democrats”) in the state assembly actually mean it.
They’d bankrupt one of the loveliest states in the nation just to signal their own pretend virtue.
P.S. Oregon was never a slave state.
The Most Juvenile Thing You’ll See All Day…
this is NOT okay! check out the sign language interpreter for Governor Andrew Cuomo's apology… 🤯😵😡 pic.twitter.com/530F3KBs27
— 🅼🅰🆃🆃 💎 🆁🆄🅱🆈 (@mattruby) March 8, 2021
…and Insanity Wrap hopes you appreciate its sophomoric genius just as much as we did.
Previously On Insanity Wrap: Savage ABC News Boils Biden’s Bunny
Your Daily Dose of Mandated Unity
Dictionary.com drops word ‘slavery,’ adds ‘BIPOC’ and ‘critical race theory’
Insanity Wrap has no issue with English dictionaries adding new words. One of the reasons English is so useful and ubiquitous is its ability, even eagerness, to adopt new words from other languages or create new words out of the ether.
It was nice while it lasted:
Dictionary.com, an online dictionary tool boasting a massive library of terms, has announced that it will be reducing its stored words and definitions by one – the word “slavery” is disappearing.
In an effort to showcase inclusive terminology, the word “slave” will have its noun listing removed. Rather than “slave” as a noun, identifying a person, the adjective “enslaved” will appear.
We might wish that Dictionary.com were honest enough to define Critical Race Theory as “a postmodern take on Marxist ‘false consciousness’ theory, used to divide and enslave entire nations,” but we won’t hold our breath.
But erasing words from the language has got to stop before we slide the slippery slope all the way down into Newspeak.
Enjoy this Insanity Wrap flashback:
“You haven’t a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston,” he said almost sadly. “Even when you write it you’re still thinking in Oldspeak. I’ve read some of those pieces that you write in the Times occasionally. They’re good enough, but they’re translations. In your heart you’d prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning. You don’t grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?”
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.
That’s from George Orwell’s 1984, but you knew that already.
Your Daily Dose of Biden Regret
— Biden Voters Posting Their L's Online (@BidenLs) March 15, 2021
First, castigate Trump for doing less of the awful thing that Obama was doing.
Second, elect President Porchlight to incentivize more of the awful thing that Obama was doing.
Third, regret!
Now that’s change you can believe in.
And Now For a Brief Moment of Sanity
‘I’d Much Rather Be in Florida’
Read this next item from…
…the New York Times:
Florida’s death rate is no worse than the national average, and better than that of some other states that imposed more restrictions, despite its large numbers of retirees, young partyers and tourists. Caseloads and hospitalizations across most of the state are down. The tens of thousands of people who died were in some ways the result of an unspoken grand bargain — the price paid for keeping as many people as possible employed, educated and, some Floridians would argue, sane.
“There’s no better place to have spent the pandemic than Miami,” said Patricia García, a freelance writer who moved from New York in 2017. Her 5-year-old daughter has been in school since August. She put her 1-year-old son in day care in July.
Ms. García, a 34-year-old Democrat, said she found herself unexpectedly defending Mr. DeSantis’s policies to her friends up north.
“People here, they’ve been able to work. The kids have been able to go to school,” she said. “We have this reputation in Florida of being all Florida Man and crazyland. But I’d much rather be in Florida than California, New York or Chicago.”
NYT reporter Patricia Mazzei did her best to frame the report with lots of worry over Florida’s neanderthal reopening, but there’s really no getting around the facts that Florida reopened sooner, had fewer restrictions to begin with, and still has a death rate lower than Luv Gov Cuomo’s New York.
Insanity Wrap couldn’t be happier.
Well, maybe we could be, if Patricia García would just change her party registration.
Here’s Another Damn Thing We’re Supposed to Be Concerned About
If you wondered what the weekend blizzard in Colorado was like, this is the view from Insanity Wrap’s dining room window.
That patio is protected on three sides and so doesn’t get any snowdrifts — that’s just how much fell straight down.
If you wondered if we made our coffee Irish in honor of the kids’ snow day, of course we did.
One More Thing…
That’s a Wrap for today.
Come back tomorrow for another Insanity Wrap…
…assuming we make it that long.
Before You Go: Insanity Wrap is just one of the many regular features on PJ Media, in addition to Stephen Kruiser’s Morning Briefing, and hot-off-the-presses news and columns from Paula Bolyard, Megan Fox, Stacey Lennox, Matt Margolis, Tyler O’Neil, Victoria Taft, and more. But did you know our VIP supporters get all that plus exclusive members-only features, podcasts, and live video chats with your favorite writers? All without ads? And without any social media censorship? You can join the cause right here.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member